Why the Korean peninsula has become the nuclear flashpoint it is today, and how the 1950-3 war marked the beginning of the American century

This lucid book should be compulsory reading for anyone who wonders how the situation on the Korean peninsula has deteriorated to the point it is today. It demonstrates the truth of the axiom that unless you know the history, you cannot see the future. The failed invasion of North Korea by US-led forces in late 1950 and the unrelenting three-year long bombing campaign of North Korean cities, towns and villages – ‘every thing that moved [and] every brick standing on top of another’ – help explain why the Pyongyang regime is, and always has been, determined to develop a credible nuclear deterrent. As Alistair Horne once said so wisely ‘How different world history would have been if MacArthur had had the good sense to stop on the 38th parallel. The first Korean War became the first of America’s failed modern wars; and its first modern war with China. It established the pattern for the next sixty years and marked the true beginning of the American century – opening the door to ever-increasing military expenditure; launching the long era of expanding American global force projection; and creating the dangerous and festering geopolitical sore that exists in Northeast Asia today. Washington has not learned the lessons of history and we are reaping the consequences. Michael Pembroke's timely book tells the story of the Korean peninsula with compassion for the people of the North and South, understanding and insight for the role of China and concern about the past and present role of the United States.

Unless you know the history, you cannot see the future. In late 1950, the US-led invasion of North Korea failed and for the next three years the United States bombed the North’s cities, towns and villages relentlessly. Pyongyang has been determined to develop a credible nuclear deterrent ever since. The Korean War was the first of America’s unsuccessful military interventions post-World War II and its first modern conflict with China. It established the pattern for the next sixty years and marked the true beginning of the American century. With compassion for the people of the North and South, and understanding for the soldiers caught between the bitter winter and an implacable enemy, Michael Pembroke tells the absorbing story of Korea. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the Korean peninsula has become the nuclear flashpoint it is today.

The story of how America turned its back on the world... In the heady days after 1945, the authority of the United States was unrivalled and, with the founding of the UN, a new era of international co-operation seemed to have begun. But seventy-five years later, its influence has already diminished. The world has now entered a post-American era, argues Michael Pembroke, defined by a flourishing Asia and the ascendancy of China, as much as by the decline of the United States. This book is a short history of that decline; how high standards and treasured principles were ignored; how idealism was replaced by hubris and moral compromise; and how adherence to the rule of law became selective. It is also a look into the future – a future dominated by greater Asia and China in particular. We are in the midst of the third great power shift in modern history – from Europe to America to Asia. Covering wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, interventions in Iran, Guatemala and Chile, and a retreat from international engagement with the UN, WHO and, increasingly, trade agreements, Pembroke sketches the history of America’s retreat from universal principles to provide a clear-eyed analysis of the dangers of American exceptionalism.

A BRACING ACCOUNT OF A WAR THAT IS EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD, FORGOTTEN, OR WILLFULLY IGNORED For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events. With access to new evidence and secret materials from both here and abroad, including an archive of captured North Korean documents, Bruce Cumings reveals the war as it was actually fought. He describes its origin as a civil war, preordained long before the first shots were fired in June 1950 by lingering fury over Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Cumings then shares the neglected history of America’s post–World War II occupation of Korea, reveals untold stories of bloody insurgencies and rebellions, and tells of the United States officially entering the action on the side of the South, exposing as never before the appalling massacres and atrocities committed on all sides. Elegantly written and blisteringly honest, The Korean War is, like the war it illuminates, brief, devastating, and essential.

This comprehensive and balanced history of modern Korea explores the social, economic, and political issues it has faced since being catapulted into the wider world at the end of the nineteenth century. Placing this formerly insular society in a global context, Michael J. Seth describes how this ancient, culturally and ethnically homogeneous society first fell victim to Japanese imperialist expansionism, and then was arbitrarily divided in half after World War II. Seth traces the postwar paths of the two Koreas with different political and social systems and different geopolitical orientations as they evolved into sharply contrasting societies. South Korea, after an unpromising start, became one of the few postcolonial developing states to enter the ranks of the first world, with a globally competitive economy, a democratic political system, and a cosmopolitan and dynamic culture. By contrast, North Korea became one of the world's most totalitarian and isolated societies, a nuclear power with an impoverished and famine-stricken population. Considering the radically different and historically unprecedented trajectories of the two Koreas, Seth assesses the insights they offer for understanding not only modern Korea but the broader perspective of world history."